Ascent of Mount Elbert on 2011-07-31

Ascent Trip Report

This is a continuation of my solo climbs of cosgriff and south elbert. After leaving the summit of south elbert I continued up the long beautiful ridge up to the summit of mt elbert which is a huge goal for me and I was so excited that I had the opportunity to climb the highest mountain in colorado and in all of the rocky mountains. This was also my first 14er (not including south elbert that isnt ranked) which is the beggining of a longtime adventure for me to climb them all. The summit was amazing. I ate a little more took a bunch of pictures and talked with the crowed of the usual summer hikers. I left and went back down the ridge to get to a col to climb bull hill. The ridge consisted of a lot of loose scree but it turned into class 4 rock climbing while I was proceding down to the col to climb the ridge of bull hill. This was the sketchiest part of the entire climb. It was actualy pretty dangerous but I was able to traverse all of the scree carefully. After going down more and more loose scree to get to the col I contemplated if I could beat the afternoon thunder storms to the top of bull hill and then back to the tree line. Eventually I got to the col which was very rocky and I could tell that bull hill was going to be more technical. This trip report continues for the ascent of bull hil.